Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
And so…Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day this year.
- A strange juxtaposition…
- Valentine’s and Ashes.
Valentine’s Day…in 2018…also fell on Ash Wednesday.
- It was the day when a shooting took place at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
- Seventeen students and staff were fatally shot and seventeen others were wounded in that shooting…
- It was a day of enormous heartbreak.
Father Michael K. Marsh…an Episcopal priest…tells about the first picture that he saw from that horrendous scene.
- It was a woman with her arms around another woman…
- Two moms crying and waiting for news about their children.
- We’ve seen those kinds of pictures before…noted Father Marsh…too many times.
- This one…though…was different.
- The thing that caught Father Marsh’s attention was a cross.
- One of the women in the photo had ashes on her forehead in the shape of a cross.
- Evidently…she had attended an Ash Wednesday service earlier in the day.
“She had been marked with a sign of mortality and the fragility of life…wrote Fr. Marsh…
- “The same sign with which you and I will be marked in a few moments…
- And she now stood among the ashes of uncertainty…fear…death…sorrow… loss.
My guess is that when those ashes were being put on her forehead earlier in the day…
- She never thought she would be standing where she was.
- None of us would have either.
- We don’t want to consider that possibility…
- Let alone face that reality.
- And yet…that’s the truth Ash Wednesday holds before us.
- “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”
- It was a sobering day.
Christ says: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them…”
- This was Jesus’ main point of contention with many of the Pharisees.
- It was their sheer hypocrisy.
- They were righteous people…and they wanted everyone to know it!
- They delighted in making a show of their piety.
Jesus had no sympathy with such foolishness…
- Whether it was with ostentatious dress…
- Or loud and lengthy prayers…
- Or flashy shows of charity.
There was a British sitcom a few years back.
- It was called: “Keeping Up Appearances.”
- It is still being shown in reruns on Netflix and Britbox and PBS.
The central character is an eccentric and snobbish middle class social climber named Hyacinth Bucket.
- Though her last name is spelled “b-u-c-k-e-t” bucket…
- She insists that it is pronounced “Bouquet.”
- She answers her phone:
- “The Bouquet residence…
- The lady of the house speaking!”
Hyacinth’s whole purpose in life seems to be to try to impress everyone else how upper class she is.
- She lives her life constantly “keeping up appearances.”
- From the china on her table to her elegant and much-dreaded dinner parties.
- She is usually hampered in her attempts to put on the ritz by her sisters and brother-in-law…
- Who are definitely uncultured.
- Much of the humor comes from the conflict between Hyacinth’s vision of herself…
- And the reality of her lower-class background.
- In each episode…she lands in a farcical situation as she battles to project an image of herself that does not mesh with reality.
In her situation…it really is funny.
- But it wasn’t funny when it came to the Pharisees.
- They were in places of religious authority.
- People looked to them to give an accurate picture of God.
- A God of love…grace…gratitude…forgiveness…non-judgement.
- Instead…all the people saw was that they had to buy their salvation.
- When…in fact…it was priceless
Way back in my ministry there was a senior member in a church that I served named Charlie…who mostly kept to himself.
- I noticed Charlie’s car at the church fairly frequently and we became good friends.
In my third year there as pastor Charlie became ill with cancer…
- And after a brief time…developed pneumonia and passed.
- Everyone at his funeral expressed kind words.
- They said things like:
- “He never complained about anything.”
- “He was always there whenever the church doors were open.”
A couple of months later a member of the congregation approached me about the light on the outside church sign not shining at night.
- I called the property chairperson about the need to check the light.
- The chairman told me that in all his years at the church he had never known the bulb to burn out…
- And did not even know where the key was to unlock the lid to change it.
A few weeks later the clock on the wall in the conference room stopped working.
- I took the clock down and it turned out that the batteries needed to be changed.
- One member said that in all her years of coming to church she never knew the clock to stop working or the batteries needing to be changed.
Sometime later I noticed a hinge on one of the cabinet doors in the fellowship hall was loose.
- I heard many people complain about the hinge being loose…but no one took time to fix it.
- And after several more similar incidents occurred…
- It became more and more apparent that Charlie was the one who fixed things…
- And kept things working smoothly at the church.
No one was aware of just how much Charlie had done.
- The quiet elderly man was the one who kept the light bulbs changed…
- The batteries in the clocks changed…
- The broken hinges repaired…
- And the list went on and on.
Christ appreciates that kind of service.
- It’s the kind of service where a woman quietly consoles a friend who has lost a child in a school shooting.
- It’s the kind of service in which a neighbor inconspicuously helps out someone in the community in need.
- It’s the kind of service in which an adult places a hand on a young person’s shoulder and gives much-needed encouragement.
It is a good thing to wear a cross around your neck or have one marked on your forehead.
- It is also a good thing to bear a cross in our daily lives.
- Bearing a cross is an act of humility and service.
- Bearing a cross is an act of commitment.
- It is an act of devotion and love.
- It is not noisy in announcing itself to the world.
- It is silent…but sincere.